Eureka5 Prague: Lithuanian duo take over at top, with Tamasauskas edging Praninskas

It was a long old day at Eureka Prague, and the hours ticked us through a number of very distinct phases.

The 558 starters were slashed to about 300 with mediaeval brutality early on, before only the slightest of slowdowns ahead of Wing Sang Lee bursting on the bubble.

We then entered the Conv era, hastily followed by the post-Conv era--the line being the moment Conv "Marc" Convey bust in 143rd for €2,420, his maiden cash on the Eureka Poker Tour.

But after that, it was all about who could build a stack during a period of Cold War economy. No one player dared rise too high through the party ranks, even though another 80-ish were exiled.

It left us at the end with 53 players still in with a shout, with only a slim margin between the approximate top ten. The outright leader going into the penultimate day is Vladas Tamasauskas, a PokerStars player from Lithuania, who had a big stack all of the day.

He finished by winning a sizeable pot from Ari Engel in the last level and bagging 2,198,000, which puts him a pip ahead of his countryman Rytis Praninskas, the only other player with more than two million.

Praninskas has 2,047,000 and we have entered the Lithuanian era.

They will do well to keep it like that because there's still a lot of talent left in this one, including the reigning EPT Prague champion Stephen Graner, a former World Series runner up in Martin Staszko and perennial boss Andrew Chen. The biggest stacks are as follows, with the chase on for €311,000.